Friday, September 16, 2016

WSA Applauds Office of Head Start for New Standards

The Office of Head Start should be commended for their work putting together the
new Head Start program performance standards. The new Head Start standards make
significant changes to the existing model.Don’t look at these changes as minor revisions or simply updates -- in
many ways this resembles a Head Start reauthorization through the regulatory
process. I do think most policy makers believe
that the new updated and much thinner standards will ensure that Head Start
programs get better results for our most at-risk children and families. Here
are my big takeaways for the Head Start community as you read through them more
closely.

Everyone, and yes I mean everyone, will be
providing full day programming to Head Start children and families. While there are a limited number of
exceptions and off-ramps, eventually every Head Start program will need to
provide 1,020 hours to every child they serve. The Office of Head Start recognizes
that this major change will not happen overnight. It becomes a requirement on
August 2021, when all of your slots must be full day. The Secretary of Health
and Human Services can, however, decide to extend that deadline if he or she
believes that there aren’t enough new dollars to make this work.They are also providing some flexibility to
grantees by not requiring a uniform 6 hours per day and instead allowing them
to make 1,020 hours work annually.

The Office of
Head Start can also provide a program with a waiver to be exempted, but you
would need to demonstrate that you can produce similar results with your own community-based
option. I think these will be hard to come by and the Office of Head Start still
needs to build this out more.

I have talked to
enough Head Start directors, staff, and parents that can clearly articulate the
difference those extra hours make in improving outcomes for children. Having
said that, I hope in the coming years that the Office of Head Start allows
parents and programs more options and choices. Some families might prefer and
benefit from a shorter duration program. I also continue to believe that the
Office of Head Start and ultimately Congress will need to make more dollars
available for facility renovation and expansion to make this new mandate
doable.

The new standards catch up with the
latest research. Most
programs are already implementing many of the best practices that the
new Head Start standards are requiring. But what they propose around dual
language learners, mixed income classrooms, homeless children, absenteeism,
working with children with disabilities, working with children with challenging
behaviors, suspension/expulsion, professional development and a host of other
areas really does a nice job of capturing the latest research and infusing that
into Head Start. Much has changed around early childhood education research
and practice from the last time the standards were revised. These new standards make the
necessary updates.

Strong parent engagement was maintained. As you know our Association had a lot of concerns about what the
Office of Head Start originally proposed when it came to parent engagement, especially
around the policy council and the family partnership agreement. We heard from many parents, directors, and family engagement staff that the new standards would weaken the role of parent engagement. I amproud of the parents in our community and across the country that spoke up and advocated to their members of Congress and the Administration on this issue. At the end of the day the Office of Head Start heard their concerns and decided to revise their initial proposal so that it would strengthen parent engagement in Head Start, rather than weaken it.We are all very
appreciative that they made the necessary changes
to the original proposal.

More babies. If you were guessing whether Head
Start was going to be more focused on pregnant moms, infants, babies, and
toddlers and less on preschoolers over the next few years, you were right. The
Obama Administration has been pretty clear about their intent. They see Head
Start serving fewer 4 year olds and instead serving more 3 year olds and
younger children. They believe that 4 year olds would be better served in state
funded preschool programs like ECEAP. You also see this with their increased
interest and investment in the Early Head Start Child Care Partnership project.
The standards reconfirmed this approach. They included language that if there
is a state funded preschool program of reasonable quality nearby, the state preschool
program should take the 4’s and the Head Start program should prioritize the
3’s. I personally disagree with this approach but this is the direction of the
Obama Administration and probably the next Administration.

Head Start will become further
integrated within state early learning systems. The standards contain several areas
where Head Start is called upon to become closer integrated into state early
learning systems. Just two specific examples: 1) all Head Start programs by
next summer will need to be part of their state’s QRIS systems—in our case
Early Achievers (with some limited exceptions) and 2) while they didn’t say
much in the standards about it they put enough in there to strongly encourage
Head Start providers to work closely with their state’s longitudinal data
system. We’re already starting these conversations with our state’s Education Research and Data Center, Region
X, DEL and Head Start directors. I think these changes are reasonable and we
should find ways to work more closely to establish less duplication and more
partnership with state early learning systems where possible.

We all should
be happy with the new Head Start performance standards. Clearly,
there is a lot more to the standards than these five big buckets and I still
have some questions where more clarity is needed, but overall this how I would
describe them in a nutshell. Please feel free to email me if you would like to
share your own thoughts or have a comment.